page_title: Manzanillo International Terminal
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Manzanillo International Terminal / History
caption_attribution_description: Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Station Coco Solo, Panama, in 1941.
context_page_description: Manzanillo International Terminal is located east of the Atlantic opening of the Panama Canal on Manzanillo Bay, Colón Province, Panama.
  MIT is a distribution center for cargo destined for cities within Panama and nearby countries in Central America and the Caribbean. It is one of the largest container transshipment terminals in the region and has direct access into the Colón Free Trade Zone. MIT, has multimodal operations including container input and output from rail, vessel and gate operations.
context_section_description: The project area, known as South Coco Solo, was a US Navy seaplane base during the World War II era. The base reverted to Panama under the Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977.
  During the 1980s, the area was used as a storage facility and distribution center for vehicles for Latin America. To avoid the  costs and logistics associated with moving cars to and from  Cristóbal, it was decided to build a roll-on/roll-off (RORO) berth at the distribution and storage facility and thereby directly import and export vehicles on site. Thus, the original concept of MIT was born.
  By August 1993, with the entry of the multinational SSA Marine, the original RORO berth concept grew into a project to create a world-class container transshipment facility equipped with over 1,200 meters of  berth, ship-to-shore gantry cranes, and modern terminal management computer systems. The Atlantic terminus of the re-built Panama Canal Railway was constructed nearby.
  MIT began operations on April 16, 1995.
caption: Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Station Coco Solo in 1941
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